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I played a game today against cron air and I realized that my army is horribly outmatched by flyers. After he took out my meltas and one missle launcher I had no way of hurting AV 13. My bolters couldn't hurt it and they took out everything that could hurt them with the help of tesla barges. So basically I need a way to get rid of flyers, I have an aegis but is rather not use it if i don't have to but if there is no other option that is viable then I will use it. I'm looking for as many options that you guys can come up with, I would prefer that the options are competative because the rest of my army is just fun stuff but it isn't fun to play if you have no chance of winning

Take 4 missile launcher Havocs with Flakk in a Bastion. They should be immune to Necron Flyer shooting, except the Doomscythe, and you'll get 4 Skyfire str 7 shots for flyers and 4 str 8 shots for the Barges. On top of the Bastion you can put an Icarus or a quad gun for more antiaircraft shooting.

A Heldrake can also help vs. The flyers. It's good in an all around list and it can threaten the Necron flyers with its vector strikes. Give it a Hades autocannons for more anti air, but I would give it the flamer so it is more versatile.

This gives you three anti air options without radically changing most CSM lists.

Ok are these the only things or are there other options I like both of them but am stuck on deciding which one to do

Flakk missiles are overcosted and are garbage. They hit on 3's and glance on 5's or 6's against most fliers.

Take a quad-gun, a Heldrake or try to ignore them.

 Alienoid wrote:
Ok are these the only things or are there other options I like both of them but am stuck on deciding which one to do

You should try to do all of them, but if you can only do one, then the Bastion with Havocs is your best bet. The Flakk missiles will hit on 3's and glance on 4's vs. Necron flyers.

Huh. For some reason I've been under the impression that they had quantum-shielding all this time. How interesting.

If you have the money for one, try investing in a Forge World Fire Raptor Gunship. This thing is beyond words of glory in terms of firepower. Both anti air and ground mop up.

Don't forget that your flyer's specifically Daemon Princes, can do swoop attacks. I don't think there is anyway to give them a shooting weapon but still with Iron Arm they can Sweep Attack them.

I don't play with forge world because my gaming group wants to keep it as balanced as possible (ie. a pure GW army against a GW/ forgeworld army is very unbalanced) so we are just trying to keep it as fun as possible for players who can't afford/ get forge world models and I'll proably try the bastion with havoks because they can also shoot ground targets

 Alienoid wrote:
I don't play with forge world because my gaming group wants to keep it as balanced as possible

^This, this made me chuckle inside.

On a serious note, bastion havocs or what also iv seen work is allies, other factions have much better options. Sucks but CSM really got left out of alot of the parties since they were the opening codex for 6th and back then no one knew how crazy fliers would become, i wish GW would at least put out a new unit or formation to help bring them up to speed.

Lolz! Csm has no good anti air since drakes are better shooting bale flamer.

The flakk upgrade on missile for havocs are just too expensive and suck at killing av 13 flyers cuz of str7.

Forge fiends get str8 autocannons and can glance on a 5+. Still suchs cuz of no sky fire.

U must ally cron, imperial vendettas, daemon soulgrinders.

The soul grinder? What could I give him to fight against air?

When I play CSM I just try my best to ignore flyers. CSM really don't have any efficient anti-air options.

The Drake is still strong against Flyers.

D3 guaranteed hits, glancing on 4s, then roast something with the Baleflamer (which is 2s to kill nearly everything ground based that Necrons typically field except Wraiths and HQs)

Yeah I wish I could ignore his flyers but they were the reason I lost, it was purge the alien and after I killed all his warriors I couldn't hurt anything else because the weapons wernt strong enough

 Filch wrote:
Lolz! Csm has no good anti air since drakes are better shooting bale flamer.

The flakk upgrade on missile for havocs are just too expensive and suck at killing av 13 flyers cuz of str7.

Forge fiends get str8 autocannons and can glance on a 5+. Still suchs cuz of no sky fire.

U must ally cron, imperial vendettas, daemon soulgrinders.

What av 13 flyers are there? Only the Caestus Assault Ram that I can think of. Necron flyers are armor 11.

 Alienoid wrote:
The soul grinder? What could I give him to fight against air?

soul grinders come stock with a 3 shot skyfire autocannon (that can also shoot ground targets). They're hardly dedicated AA, but they're a nice versitile platform that can also plink at aircraft when no other targets present themselves.

The night scythe he said has av 13 all around and his tesla destructors were killing everything


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmm I'll put some thought into the soul grinder it may be a good combo with the bloodthirster i use sometimes against turtle armies

 Alienoid wrote:
The night scythe he said has av 13 all around and his tesla destructors were killing everything

He is wrong. Neither scythe variants come with Quantum Shielding (which adds +2 to the front and side armor of a vehicle until it suffers a pen) so are av11 all around. and its single Tesla Destructor is strong but its just a bunch of S7 ap- shots.

Soul Grinders are one of the best counters against scythes because with Av13 they are basically immune to it while still being able to deal solid damage to it.

 Alienoid wrote:
I don't play with forge world because my gaming group wants to keep it as balanced as possible (ie. a pure GW army against a GW/ forgeworld army is very unbalanced)

I know, usually the guy running the forgeworld (read fluffworld) gets slammed.


As for CSM AA, the answer is not too much anymore. Heldrakes vector striking was always great but this really is not the case anymore.


If you are willing to take allies, slaneesh lash princes will still do a number on fliers...especially if they get iron arm. In which case, they will utterly dominate the air.

 Alienoid wrote:
I don't play with forge world because my gaming group wants to keep it as balanced as possible (ie. a pure GW army against a GW/ forgeworld army is very unbalanced) so we are just trying to keep it as fun as possible for players who can't afford/ get forge world models and I'll proably try the bastion with havoks because they can also shoot ground targets

I would think after your experiance this time you're reconsidering this stance

I just realized that the two of us wrote basically the same question, and the people have given us basically the same answer. Put the fire-support marines into a fortification, take allies, or ignore the flyers.

Going beyond ignoring them, I think I've come up with a better idea, I think it might be possible to dodge them. Remember, flyers if they wanna stay zooming, have to move at least 18". If you move your units in such a way as to get outside the space they can turn to face you, it might be hard for them to attack you, they'll have to fly back off the table (maybe drop a bomb or vector on the way) but they won't be able to bring the flying model's full firepower to bear. Get as close to his table-edge as possible, and it will be harder and harder for him to fly at you.

If they brought a flyer that can hover, like a stormraven or a valkarie, once they start hovering, it turns back into a skimmer, which makes it much easier to kill. So another option is, stay mobile, and try to force the skimmers to either land, or fly off the table.

Alienoid wrote: After he took out my meltas and one missle launcher I had no way of hurting AV 13.

Woah, woah, woah. That was ALL your anti-tank?

Well, there's your problem.

If you bring enough stuff to handle riptides and regular vehicle spam, you have enough to handle fliers. Personally, my favorite is my 10-man CSM termie squad with combi-weapons and a pair of TL autocannons or obliterators deepstriking behind the flier after it hits the board. Mass S7/8 with the termies, and that juicy twin-linked nature of oblits, especially into rear armor usually makes a mess of things. And the best part is that obliterators and terminators are good against so much else as well, they're hardly useless outside of AA.

 Alienoid wrote:
The night scythe he said has av 13 all around and his tesla destructors were killing everything

CrownAxe is right, the Necron flyers do not have AV13 at all. The Forgeworld Night Shroud Bomber has AV12 all around but your standard Nightscythe and Doomscythe are AV11 all around.

The Annihilation Barges (Linked here) are AV13 on the front and side until the first pen but are skimmers and not flyers and do not require to be snapfired at.

Struggling with the same problem - and against Tyranid FMC spam it is even worse since they have a metric fuckton of wounds and also get strengthened by Catalyst and get FNP…

However, Icarus and Quadcannon work fine for me so far. Also the Heldrake, however that one can not only Vector Strike, but also get hit by Vector Strike… so Tyranids just rip them a new one after one turn. Still worth it though for the chance to ground one FMC. Against Necron it works fine.

One thing I just started to test is twin-linked weapons. Snap-shooting with twin-link results in a 30.6% chance to hit. Sometimes this might be worth it.

 azreal13 wrote:
The Drake is still strong against Flyers.

D3 guaranteed hits, glancing on 4s, then roast something with the Baleflamer (which is 2s to kill nearly everything ground based that Necrons typically field except Wraiths and HQs)

I'd also like to endorse the Hades Autocannon Drake

CSM codex straight up sucks vs flyers. You will get worked by any list with strong flyers - triple flyrant, necrons, vendettas, stormravens..

contrary to popular opinion, the heldrake isn't that great. vector strike is d3 hits, but then you don't get to shoot in shooting phase. and I believe vector strike is just 1 hit (not d3) vs. FMC's, but I could be mistaken on that.

Don't take flakk havocs, overcosted and weak. Aegis is decent but not the greatest.

I'd say the vengeance weapon battery with quad lascannon (heavy 2, twin-linked skyfire, AV 14) is a good option at 75 points. If you're vs. multiple flyers take two. They are cheaper than a heldrake, more durable, and have a 96" range.

CSM is a bad book, good luck.

sand.zzz wrote:
[...]
I'd say the vengeance weapon battery with quad lascannon (heavy 2, twin-linked skyfire, AV 14) is a good option at 75 points. If you're vs. multiple flyers take two. They are cheaper than a heldrake, more durable, and have a 96" range.
[...]

This, just take the fortification and place one near an objective. The Marines holding the objective can fire that thing and pop things out of the sky. If you place it right, enemies really don't have a lot of space to have flyers come in as they have interceptor, so you might pop them out before they even get to shoot at you.

The vengeance weapons look great, but marines can't fire them. They're automated fire (closest target, BS2) only. Twin linked makes up for that a lot though.

 Vomikron Noxis wrote:
The vengeance weapons look great, but marines can't fire them. They're automated fire (closest target, BS2) only. Twin linked makes up for that a lot though.

Yea the bs2 is probably the reason for a twin linked skyfire lascannon in an av 14 shell - is only 75 points. Taking the bs into consideration, its almost mandatory you take two. 150 points.

Still cheaper than a heldrake. They will live longer and (arguably) do more damage. I'm inclined to suggest placeing both of them near each other to ensure they shoot at the same target. That's more of a gametime decision though.

CSM don't have a lot of AA options, for me this is the best value for the points.
Good luck